British and European Responses to the Proposed U.S. Military Action Against Iraq

About the Authors

In his address to a joint session of Congress on
September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush remarked that "America
has no truer friend than Great Britain. Once again we are joined in
a great cause." Since the terrorist attacks on New York and
Washington, Prime Minister Tony Blair has stood "shoulder to
shoulder" with the United States in the war against terrorism.
Britain was the first country to join with America in launching
military strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the
British Prime Minister has played an outstanding role in helping to
build the international coalition in the fight against
al-Qaeda.

There already are 1,500 British troops
serving with the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF)
in Afghanistan, and 1,700 Royal Marines are due to be sent soon to
fight alongside U.S. forces against the still deadly remnants of
the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In Iraq, Royal Air Force jets continue to
patrol the no-fly zone in the northern part of the country together
with their U.S. counterparts in a display of joint force to protect
the Kurdish minority.

As
the Bush Administration contemplates military action against Saddam
Hussein's regime in Iraq, the United States is looking to the
British government for military, strategic, and diplomatic support.
President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are due to hold a summit
meeting in Crawford, Texas, on April 5-7 to discuss possible joint
action against Iraq in what will be one of the most important tests
of the Anglo-U.S. "special relationship" since World War II.
According to a Downing Street spokesman, "the meeting will be to
finalise phase two of the war against terrorism."1

As
the summit approaches, the Administration would do well to keep in
mind the challenges the Blair government faces in committing to a
war with Iraq. Specifically:

In order to
support the U.S. position on fighting a war with Iraq, Blair must
be convinced that such a war is winnable, that Saddam can be
ousted, and that a viable opposition can then take power.
Tony Blair faces strong opposition from members of his own Cabinet,
the Labour Party, military chiefs, and much of the British media to
having Britain join a U.S. war against Iraq. In addition to
presenting sufficient evidence of the threat Saddam Hussein poses
to security, the Bush Administration should work closely with
British Minister of Defence Geoff Hoon, whose support will prove
critical to Blair in building support among the British military
establishment and his own Cabinet.

The Prime
Minister may have to look increasingly for support among the
Conservative opposition in Parliament for joining a war against
Iraq. Blair faces major battles on the domestic front,
particularly with trade unions and public-sector workers, and will
likely need support from Conservatives for committing to a war in
Iraq. Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith has already
pledged absolute support for the U.S. position.

Blair faces
extreme pressure from the European Commission and other European
Union (EU) member states to stay out of such a war. The
European Commission could try to use the Iraq debate as a vehicle
to project its influence on the global stage and to rally
opposition to other U.S. policies. Logistical support and the use
of air bases may come from Rome and Madrid, but support from
Germany and France would likely depend on the outcome of upcoming
elections. The White House should cultivate relations with EU
foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who, among officials in
Brussels, has been the most receptive to the military aims of the
United States.

Blair's support
for the U.S. position on Iraq does not mean that his government
will back similar action against other rogue states. With
regard to Iran and North Korea, the New Labour line has been one of
engagement, similar to that of the EU. The Bush Administration must
not take Britain's military support for granted.

Tony Blair's Support for America's
Campaign

Downing Street has not yet publicly
endorsed the idea of U.S. military action against Iraq, nor has the
British government stated that British forces would participate in
a U.S.-led attack. However, the indications are that Tony Blair is
strongly considering not only full support for a war against Saddam
Hussein, but also British involvement in such a war.

Officials at the Ministry of Defence are
reportedly studying feasibility plans for the deployment of up to
25,000 military personnel to take part in a possible ground
offensive against Baghdad.2 Britain is expected to publish
a dossier of intelligence material ahead of the summit, providing
damning evidence that Iraq is building weapons of mass destruction.
And Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications chief and closest
political adviser, has stated that the Prime Minister's message for
the President when the two meet in Texas will be one of "total
support" for America's campaign against international terrorism.3

The
fact that Britain has dispatched a major additional force to
Afghanistan (the largest British combat deployment since the Gulf
War) demonstrates Blair's continuing commitment to the U.S. war on
terrorism, as well as a desire to increase Britain's standing and
influence with Washington as the White House prepares to expand the
conflict to Iraq. Blair may also use the troop deployment as a
political lever with which to press Bush into seeking wider
international support for action against Baghdad. In the words of a
Downing Street source:

The speed and size of the deployment to
Afghanistan is a cheque that Blair will cash in. He will tell Bush
that he needs to carry the international community with him.4

Blair held talks in London with Vice
President Richard Cheney earlier this month, sending a strong
signal that Britain and America are planning a combined initiative
to build a coalition against the Iraqi dictator. In a joint press
conference, Blair warned that "the threat of weapons of mass
destruction will have to be addressed":

Let's be under no doubt whatever, Saddam
Hussein has acquired weapons of mass destruction over a long period
of time. He is the only leader in the world that has actually used
chemical weapons against his own people. He is in breach of at
least 9 UN Security Council Resolutions about weapons of mass
destruction. He has not allowed weapons inspectors to do the job
that the UN wanted them to do in order to make sure that he can't
develop them. Now we have said right from the very outset, no
decisions have been taken on how we deal with this threat, but that
there is a threat from Saddam Hussein and the weapons of mass
destruction that he has acquired is not in doubt at all.5

Significantly, Blair's position has
altered considerably since last year. Last November, after meeting
in Downing Street, Blair and French President Jacques Chirac issued
a joint statement expressing opposition to a widening of the war
against terrorism, with Blair stressing that the focus must remain
on finishing the war in Afghanistan. With regard to speculation
about action against Iraq, a senior government figure was quoted at
the time as saying that "we do not think it is a good idea,
particularly without evidence of Baghdad's involvement in
terrorism."6

The
turnaround by the British government was prompted by President
Bush's State of the Union address and Blair's realization that
America is fundamentally determined to remove Saddam Hussein from
power. Blair is not a conviction politician, but a pragmatist who
understands that Britain's position as a leading global power (as
opposed to a superpower), greatly enhanced since September 11,
rests heavily on its role as a partner with the United States in
their "special relationship." As a close ally of America, Britain
is able to exert influence across the world, in sharp contrast to
Germany and France, which are merely European powers with a very
limited projection of power beyond the continent.

Tony
Blair also realizes that his position as President Bush's closest
political friend in Europe gives him immeasurably enhanced weight
within the European Union--as witnessed by the rush of European
leaders to attend a Blair-led summit dinner in Downing Street to
discuss the coalition against terrorism last December. Some in
Europe may carp at Britain's seemingly unswerving support for the
United States, with Blair described as Bush's "poodle," but the
harsh reality remains that the EU is both resentful and jealous of
the Bush-Blair friendship and the immense power wielded by the
U.S.-British alliance. In the war against terrorism, the EU (like
the United Nations) has been sidelined as a virtual irrelevance,
and the Europeans may seek to use opposition to an Iraq war to try
to prove that the European Union is a force to be reckoned with on
the international stage.

Opposition Within the Parliamentary Labour
Party

The
United States should be under no illusions that the New Labour
Party led by Tony Blair fully shares his pro-American stance. For
much of its history, Labour has been a socialist party hostile to
many aspects of U.S. foreign policy, ranging from the bombing of
Libya in 1986 to the deployment of nuclear weapons on British
soil.

Labour continues to subscribe to a what it
calls an "ethical foreign policy"--a phrase coined by the previous
Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook,7 and the
antithesis of current Bush Administration thinking. This highly
confusing, utopian doctrine is neatly encapsulated in a recent
speech by Denis McShane, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the
Foreign Office:

What is British foreign policy? I would
sum it up in four words: prevent conflicts, promote well-being. No
adjectives, no metaphors about punching weight, no false fights
between Europe and the United States, no Palmerstonian distinction
between allies and interests and above all no dichotomy between
realism and idealism.... It is through dialogue, negotiation, the
search for international agreements, the construction of global
rule of law, the strengthening of the UN and its agencies, that we
will help improve the quality of life for fellow-citizens.8

While the Labour Party has undergone a
dramatic metamorphosis since Blair took over as leader, it has
retained a hard rump of left-wingers on its back benches who are
fundamentally opposed to the ideas of the Bush Administration.
Indeed, it would be true to say that the vast majority of Labour
MPs have no instinctive sympathy for U.S. aims at all, particularly
those of the current American government. National missile defense,
foreign aid, global warming, Israeli-Palestinian relations, and the
International Criminal Court are all areas of contention between
New Labour and the current Republican Administration.

Many
Cabinet members, such as Jack Straw, Clare Short, Robin Cook, and
John Prescott, have shared the concerns of left-wing Labour MPs and
have been highly critical of aspects of recent U.S. policy. In
fact, it is highly unlikely that Britain under a Labour government
would be joining military action against Iraq were it not for the
leadership of Tony Blair.

Over
130 MPs, including four Labour ex-Ministers, have signed a House of
Commons motion expressing "deep unease" at Blair's support for
America over Iraq. Most of the signatories are Labour MPs, backed
by several Liberal Democrats and all nine Scottish and Welsh
Nationalist MPs. With growing support in both the Labour and the
Liberal Democratic Parties, this figure could well rise to 150-160
MPs, giving Downing Street some cause for concern. (The
government's current majority over all other parties stands at
165.)

It
is very likely that the level of opposition among Labour MPs is
much higher than this figure, with many afraid to oppose the Party
line openly. A February 2002 BBC poll of 101 Labour MPs found that
86 believed that there was insufficient evidence to justify British
participation in an attack on Iraq. The mood of dissent was
captured clearly in comments made by Donald Anderson, the Labour
chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, when he
described President Bush as behaving like a "wild west sheriff"
isolated from world opinion: "When the time of trial...comes, the
sheriff will look around and there won't be any deputies there."9

Whatever the level of opposition to the
government among Labour MPs, the Prime Minister will not be obliged
by the Constitution or by precedent to hold a full vote of
Parliament on the issue, which means that a backbench rebellion
will be of symbolic rather than practical importance. No vote was
held before or during either the Gulf War or the Afghanistan
campaign. In the highly unlikely event that he is forced into a
Commons vote on the issue, Blair might have to rely on the support
of the 164 Conservative MPs, who are expected overwhelmingly to
support action against Iraq, for a convincing victory.

The
Labour revolt in the Commons is led by Alice Mahon, a left-wing
radical with outspoken views on international affairs and sponsor
of the Commons motion on Iraq. Together with fellow Labour MP Tam
Dalyell, "father" of the House of Commons (longest serving member
of Parliament), Mahon has written an open letter to Tony Blair
warning against "an aggressive war by Britain and the US" and has
called on the government to "take no part in the decision to murder
more helpless civilians."10 Addressing the Commons, she
urged fellow MPs to back her call to rebel against the government's
position on Iraq:

We are about to hear huge spin about how
many weapons of mass destruction exist in Iraq. When we receive the
dossier, no doubt we will read that some such weapons are more
sophisticated than those in the Pentagon.... I do not think that
there is a United Nations resolution that gives the Americans the
right unilaterally to take action while we run alongside as little
bag carriers.11

Mahon is unstinting in her condemnation of
U.S. policy and responded to reports of the Pentagon's Nuclear
Posture Review with the observation that "The lunatics have taken
over the White House."12 She has been heavily
criticized by the Labour leadership in the past for opposing NATO
bombing of the Serbs.

As
chairman of the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, a group
sympathetic to the former Serb regime of Slobodan Milosevic, she
visited Belgrade in April 1999 on a propaganda trip highlighting
civilian casualties of NATO strikes.13 She
travelled again to Serbia in September 1999, this time with Tam
Dalyell, to inspect bomb sites at a time when Milosevic was being
hunted as a war criminal.14

Mahon was a fierce opponent of Allied
military action against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and was one of
four Labour MPs to condemn Tony Blair for backing U.S. missile
strikes against Osama bin Laden's weapons factory in Sudan in
August 1998.15 She was also among 40 MPs who
called for America to end its sanctions policy toward Cuba in
November 2000.16

Another leading figure in the Labour
parliamentary rebellion is George Galloway, recently labeled an
"apologist" and "a mouthpiece for the Iraqi regime over many years"
in a Commons debate by a Foreign Office minister.17 Galloway has described the
campaign to eliminate Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction as "the
longest running hoax in the international community."18 He has visited Iraq several
times since the Gulf War and, in a 1994 fact-finding mission to
Baghdad, reportedly greeted his host Saddam Hussein with the words:
"Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability
and I want you to know that we are with you."19

Galloway's views on the Anglo-U.S.
alliance were summed up in a recent interview with the Al-Jazeera
news network in which he told his Arab audience:

It is humiliating for Great Britain to
turn itself into the tail of the American dog, particularly when
the head of this dog belongs to a crazy person. Regrettably, this
special relationship which we have with the United States is of the
kind that President Clinton had with Monica Lewinsky. It is
one-sided, it is immoral, and it can be called off whenever the
more powerful partner likes.20

George Galloway's rhetoric represents not
just animosity toward America and its foreign policy--a decades-old
tradition in the Labour Party--but a visceral hatred for the
current Bush Administration that is shared by a sizeable number of
his fellow Labour MPs. In a parliamentary debate on Iraq in early
March, Galloway expressed his contempt for America's talk of
military action in the Gulf:

It is the policy of a right-wing
Republican administration. I say to Labour colleagues who
contemplate supporting George Bush war mark 2 that my hon. friend
the member for Glasgow, Baillieston [Mr. Wray] was right: the White
House is not a Clinton White House; it is not a third-way White
House nor is it a social democrat White House. It is the
Reagan-Bush era White House reconstituted. What sort of Labour
Member of Parliament will support in the Lobby a war launched by
such a grizzly crew?21

Disturbingly for Blair, more moderate
Labour MPs are joining forces with left-wingers such as Mahon and
Galloway. They include some senior ex-ministers who still carry
weight and respect in the party. Former Defence Minister Peter
Kilfoyle, a fierce critic of what he calls Britain's "slavish
support" for America's missile defense system, has warned that
Britain may be sucked into "another Vietnam" in the war against
terrorism.22 Mo Mowlam, the former
Northern Ireland minister and an extremely popular figure among
Labour backbenchers, recently launched a broadside against the
government in a Labour-supporting newspaper: "Blair seems to be
making it clear that he has more sympathy with the wishes of
Washington and their reckless attitude to Iraq than he does for his
own party and even members of his Cabinet."23

Significantly, the Iraq issue is not just
a rallying cry for the British Left keen to vent their ideological
anger against what they see as U.S. imperialism; the Iraq debate
comes at a time when there is growing disillusionment within the
Labour Party over the general direction in which the party and
government are going. Mo Mowlam illustrated this mood clearly in
her recent article when she wrote of "a Prime Minister who has
thrown away the British constitution and seems to see himself as
our President."24 There is already open talk of
replacing Blair with Gordon Brown as party leader, though this is
unlikely to succeed in the course of this Parliament unless the
Iraq war is a total disaster for Blair.25

Blair's personal approval rating has
plummeted in the past month, falling from 69 percent to 49 percent.
This compares with a popularity rating for President Bush of over
80 percent. Labour support is also falling for the first time in
the course of this Parliament, with Labour's lead over the
Conservatives cut from 17 points to just 9 points (43 percent to 34
percent).26

The
Blair government has been hit by a series of scandals, including
allegations that the Prime Minister personally intervened to help
billionaire Labour donor Lakshmi Mittal purchase a nationalized
steel company in Romania.27 Blair has brushed aside the
controversy, dismissing it as "garbagegate," but there is little
doubt that the affair has added greatly to the public perception
that the New Labour government is mired in sleaze. The government
is also under attack for failing to deal with the chronic problems
besetting the country's schools, hospitals, and public transport,
as well as a rising tide of violent crime, particularly in
London.

Perhaps most seriously for Blair's own
position in the Labour Party, the powerful trade unions, which
continue to exert a large amount of influence within Labour, are
starting to show signs of turning against Blair. John Monks,
General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), has been
fiercely critical of Blair's growing collaboration with
conservative leaders in Europe, including Silvio Berlusconi and
José Maria Aznar, on issues such as EU labour reform. Monks
attacked Blair's ties with Berlusconi as "bloody stupid" and told
The Times that the unions were "fed up with playing the role of
stooges" to the Prime Minister.28

There is little doubt that Blair's
position today is considerably weaker than it was in the aftermath
of the September 11 attacks. With growing hostility within his own
Labour Party, Blair will be acutely aware that major military
mistakes in Iraq, such as a huge loss of civilian life from Allied
bombing, could gravely wound him politically.

Cabinet Opposition

The
Blair Cabinet (as opposed to the parliamentary Labour Party) has
remained largely silent on the issue of Iraq, implying a level of
tacit but far from enthusiastic support for Blair's position.
Indeed, the level of private disquiet within the Cabinet over
Blair's support for Bush is probably much greater than it appears
on the surface.

Key
figures such as Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and Deputy
Prime Minister John Prescott have kept out of the debate. David
Blunkett, probably the leading contender along with Brown for the
future leadership of the Labour Party post-Blair, has also avoided
expressing his views on a possible war with Iraq, although he has
warned that Muslim youths may riot in British cities if a conflict
does break out in the Gulf.

Secretary of Defence Geoff Hoon is
regarded as the most hawkish of Blair's ministers and is expected
to support military action against Iraq; he has stated that Britain
would back U.S. military force against Iraq "in the right
conditions."29 Hoon recently told the House
of Commons Defence Select Committee that Britain would retaliate
with a nuclear strike if attacked by a rogue state such as Iraq,
Iran, North Korea, or Libya using weapons of mass destruction,
emphasizing that dictators such as Saddam Hussein could "be
absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be
willing to use our nuclear weapons." Hoon's statements were
supported by a joint Ministry of Defence/Foreign Office paper,
which warned that "a capability to target the UK accurately could
emerge within the next few years" if a country in the Middle East
or North Africa manages to acquire a complete long-range ballistic
missile system.30

Within the Blair "War Cabinet," the team
of ministers currently charged with overseeing the British campaign
in the war against terrorism, three figures who will play important
roles in the coming months--Jack Straw, Clare Short, and Robin
Cook--should give the Bush Administration some cause for concern.
Significantly, all three have sparked diplomatic incidents
involving Israel and are known to be sympathetic to Yasser Arafat
and the Palestinian cause, indicating that Blair may face strong
pressure from within his Cabinet to press for an
Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement before embarking on a war with
Iraq.

Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw.
A clear sign that Tony Blair is extremely serious about supporting
America in a war against Iraq has been the conversion of Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw. Widely perceived as being out his depth in
the aftermath of September 11, Straw has evolved into a vociferous
defender of Blair's new hard-line approach to Saddam Hussein. The
Foreign Secretary, a former member of the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament (CND), has even begun to offer endorsements of
Washington's national missile defense system, a thorny issue for
many New Labour ministers.31

Straw is now at the forefront of the
campaign to inform the British and international public of the
dangers posed by Saddam's desire to develop weapons of mass
destruction. Addressing the House of Commons, for example, he
emphasized that

the Iraqi regime represents a severe
threat to international and regional security as a result of its
continued development of weapons of mass destruction. It has an
appalling human rights record using torture and mass execution of
political detainees.... [T]here is a huge amount of compelling
evidence about the complicity of Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi
regime in the production of weapons of mass destruction.32

On
the question of British participation in military action, Straw
made it clear that this was a course of action the government would
consider, though within the confines of international law:

We should not rule out possible actions if
Saddam Hussein does not comply with international law, but we have
to be very careful in this situation. We must be cautious and
proportionate, and ensure that the decisions that we take have the
support of the international community and are consistent with
international law.33

Straw's tough remarks are in sharp
contrast to his earlier observations and suggest that Blair is
applying considerable pressure on Cabinet colleagues to toe the new
line on Iraq. Straw is ambitious and sees himself as a contender
for the leadership when Blair goes, so he will be keen to be seen
as closely backing the Blair line. Straw is also notorious for
making gaffes in interviews and policy statements, however, and
there is a strong possibility that he might make comments during
the course of the buildup to war against Iraq that embarrass the
Anglo-U.S. coalition.

The
Foreign Secretary's response to President Bush's State of the Union
address was dismissive and less than flattering, describing it as a
piece of Republican Party electioneering aimed at a domestic
audience. During a press conference at the British Embassy in
Washington, Straw commented that Bush's speech "was best understood
by the fact that there are mid-term congressional elections coming
up in November. You don't need me to tell you that."34 Straw's remarks caused
considerable disquiet in London and Washington, and were used by
commentators to suggest that the Anglo-U.S. alliance was starting
to drift apart.

Straw has also been critical of America's
treatment of Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and
had demanded guarantees from U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld that the detainees were being treated humanely.

In
recent months, Straw has spearheaded the Foreign Office's
controversial policy of "critical engagement" with Iran--a country
designated by the United States as a sponsor of state terrorism. He
has been condemned by Richard Perle, an adviser to Rumsfeld, as an
appeaser of rogue states such as Iran.35 Straw
visited Tehran last September soon after the terrorist attacks on
the United States, the first British Foreign Secretary to visit the
state since the fall of the Shah in 1979. The visit provoked
outrage in Israel, and diplomatic tensions between London and Tel
Aviv were heightened by Straw's ill-timed decision to write an
article for a state-controlled Iranian newspaper.

In
the article, written without the Prime Minister's prior knowledge,
Straw expressed the view "that one of the factors which helps breed
terrorism is the anger which many people in this region feel at
events over the years in Palestine."36 Straw
had earlier praised the Iranian government of President Mohammad
Khatami for its "human understanding" following the events of
September 11, describing its rulers as being among the "decent
leaders of the Islamic world."37 The
Israelis reacted furiously, and only a last-minute intervention by
Downing Street prevented the cancellation of a scheduled meeting
between the British Foreign Secretary and Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon.

The
episode demonstrated extremely poor judgment and insensitivity on
Straw's part and does not bode well for his forthcoming role as
ambassador for Tony Blair as the Prime Minister seeks to rally
international support for extending the war against terrorism to
Iraq.

International
Development Secretary Clare Short.
Within the Cabinet, dissent against Blair's stance on Iraq has
been led by Clare Short. She is the first minister to state her
opposition to a military attack on Iraq. Her position was made
clear in an interview with the BBC:

Blind military action against Iraq doesn't
deal with the problem.... With the state of the Middle East, the
terrible suffering of both the Israeli and Palestinian people, with
the anger there is in the Arab world, to open up a military flank
on Iraq would be very unwise.38

Short, the most outspoken and left-wing
member of the Blair Cabinet, is widely expected to resign if
Britain does go to war with Iraq. She has resigned from the Labour
front bench twice before, including over the Gulf War in 1991, and
is an old-style socialist who has never quite fit into the
regimented ranks of New Labour, with its obsession with control and
"spin." She is known for her anti-American views but is no more
hostile to the present Republican Administration than she was to
the Clinton Administration, having described the President in 1998
as unfit to be leader of the United States, much to the
embarrassment of Downing Street.39

Like
many other Labour ministers, Short has taken a strongly
pro-Palestinian stance in the past, and has upset British relations
with Israel with her views. In a 1997 speech to the charity,
Medical Aid for the Palestinians, Short sparked a major diplomatic
incident when she spoke of the "historical wrongs done to the
Palestinian people--and the unfairness of the world's expectations
that they should make sacrifices to make up for the evil done by
Europeans during the Holocaust."40

Although very popular among the Labour
rank and file, Short is not regarded as a figure of sufficient
stature in the party to lead a Cabinet revolt. However, if she were
to be joined by the leader of the House of Commons, Robin Cook,
Tony Blair would be placed in a very difficult position.

Leader of the
House of Commons Robin Cook.
Robin Cook was Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 1991, when he was
replaced by Jack Straw. As leader of the Commons and as the
architect of New Labour's "ethical foreign policy," Cook still
wields considerable influence in the Cabinet. Like Clare Short, he
already has reached the pinnacle of his career and has been the
victim of ruthless past reshuffles by Tony Blair. His demotion from
Foreign Secretary by Blair was bitter and was seen as a humiliating
put-down after a number of diplomatic blunders. Cook and Short have
little to lose by resigning over an issue such as Iraq.

Cook
has expressed dissent over the government's position on Iraq,
describing talk of military action as "ludicrously premature."41 Together with Short, he was
highly critical of British participation in the Gulf War while a
member of the Labour Shadow Cabinet and condemned the Allied
bombing of Iraq during the conflict.42 Like
Straw (and Tony Blair), Cook is a former member of the Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament and has strongly opposed British cooperation
with the United States over national missile defense.43 As Foreign Secretary, he was
viewed by the Israelis as being strongly pro-Arafat and nearly
caused a major crisis in relations between Britain and Israel when
he visited Jerusalem in March 1998.44

While it is conceivable that up to 160 MPs
might oppose military action against Iraq, it is doubtful that such
opposition would be strong enough to deter Blair from joining the
U.S. campaign. The real danger would come from a Labour backbench
rebellion that coincides with the resignation of two or more of his
ministers such as Short and Cook. This could pressure Blair to
waiver in his commitment to see through the military campaign,
which would have serious consequences for an Anglo-U.S. military
operation.

The Conservative Party's Position

Conservative Party support for the U.S.
position on Iraq has been unequivocal. Party leader Iain Duncan
Smith called for action against Iraq well in advance of Tony Blair.
During meetings with Vice President Cheney and other members of the
Bush Administration last November, Duncan Smith called for Britain
to take a leading role in supporting rebel opposition groups in
Iraq that could play a role similar to that of the Northern
Alliance in Afghanistan.45

Duncan Smith also has called for the
toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime,46 and his
stance is strongly supported by the Shadow Cabinet. In a foreign
policy speech to the Royal Institute of International Affairs in
London in January 2002, the Conservative leader accused Blair's
government of "designer diplomacy" and called on Britain to play a
more active role in taking on the rogue states:

The world cannot be safe while Saddam
Hussein is free to develop weapons of mass destruction. Nor can we
accept that, simply because they were hostile to the Taliban, other
states which actively support terrorism should be treated as if
they were upstanding members of the international community.
Britain should give absolute support to the measures necessary to
ensure that events like those of 11th September are never repeated.
We should always recognize that our ability to help shape the
thinking of the USA is greatest if we retain the capacity to act.
If all we have to offer is our wisdom, our influence is likely to
be diminished.47

The British Military Response

Of
particular concern to Tony Blair will be the growing signs of
pessimism and gloom among Britain's military chiefs, which may
reflect a lack of self-confidence after a decade of defense cuts.
According to a report in the Observer
newspaper, senior figures in the armed forces are warning Blair
that a war against Iraq "is doomed to fail and would lead to the
loss of lives for political gain." They believe that Saudi Arabia's
rulers will refuse to allow the Allies to use their country as a
base for strikes against Iraq. They also have expressed concern
about the weakness of opposition forces in the country and the
absence of a trusted, authoritative successor to Saddam Hussein.48

Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, Chief of
Defence Staff, has been outspoken in voicing his concerns about
U.S. plans to expand the war against terrorism. In a major speech
to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London in
December, Boyce observed that

We will have to look carefully at the UK's
strategic choices, and ways of prosecuting operations that may
contradict national policy. Both the UK and United States wish to
promote regional stability, but our perspectives of global and
regional stability have been distorted by the focus on fighting
terrorism. We have to consider whether we wish to follow the United
States' single minded aim to finish Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda;
and/or to involve ourselves in creating the conditions for
nation-building or reconstruction as well.... We have to realise
that broader operations into regions that threaten UK policy goals
will force us to choose between unconditional support to the
coalition, conditional support, and "red lines" or selective
support--or indeed lack of support.... Altogether, that there will
be some slight difference in approach between the United States and
UK is clear--but with a previously isolationist single super power
background and a global capability, the United States has less need
of consensus than we do.49

In a
thinly veiled reference to the apparently gung-ho U.S. approach to
the conflict, Admiral Boyce noted that "this is not a high tech
21st century posse in the Wild West" and stated that the Allied
coalition members "have to attack the causes not the symptoms of
terrorism." Boyce's speech was criticized by the conservative Daily Telegraph as representing "a nadir
in the politicisation of the senior ranks of the Armed Forces."50

There is growing concern within the
British defense establishment that there is a serious lack of funds
available for a major military campaign in the Middle East. Leaked
briefing papers written by General Michael Walker, Chief of General
Staff, reveal that the Army will require an extra £500
million in this summer's Comprehensive Spending Review if a war is
to be embarked upon. Sir Michael wrote that future funding for
defense "remains very taut, given the range of operational tasks
placed on the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces."51

Britain's armed forces will be severely
stretched by participation in an Iraq campaign. It will be very
difficult for Britain to provide the estimated 25,000 troops, as
the United States requested, without a reduction of troop numbers
in peacekeeping operations. British forces are scattered across the
globe in a number of peacekeeping theaters of operation, including
Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Sierra Leone.

British Public Opinion

Opinion
Polls.
A March 2002 opinion poll for The Guardian suggests that only 35
percent of British voters would back British support for a U.S.-led
strike on Iraq, with 51 percent against it.52 This
makes very bad reading for the Blair government and illustrates the
need for an intense and hard-hitting information campaign by
Downing Street and the White House to highlight the dangers posed
by the Iraqi regime and the need for a military response. This
contrasts with a figure of 74 percent in support of British
military action in Afghanistan last October and 56 percent in
support of Anglo-U.S. bombing raids against Iraq in February 1998.
At the start of the Gulf War in 1991, 80 percent of British voters
backed Allied military action to remove Iraq from Kuwait.

Surprisingly, according to the recent
poll, only 41 percent of Conservative voters favor an attack, with
48 percent against. Iain Duncan Smith therefore will play an
important role in shoring up support among Conservatives, who
traditionally provide strong backing for any military action
involving British or U.S. forces. The lack of Conservative support
is probably more a reflection of dislike for Tony Blair than a gut
rejection of another military campaign and should not be taken as a
sign that Conservative voters will not back the government in the
event of a war.

Labour voters are fairly evenly divided,
with 43 percent supporting the U.S. position and 46 percent
opposing it. The Liberal Democrats, who have shifted to the left of
Labour in recent years, are overwhelmingly hostile to U.S. military
action, with 67 percent opposed. Liberal leader Charles Kennedy is
likely to strongly oppose British action alongside America and is
known for his anti-American views, having warned against the United
States being given a "blank cheque" to take action against
Afghanistan in the aftermath of September 11.53

The
latest figures represent growing war-weariness in the United
Kingdom and a limited public awareness of the threat posed by rogue
states as opposed to that represented by al-Qaeda. If strong links
between Osama bin Laden and Iraq could be proven, the British and
(for that matter) European publics would be more inclined to back a
war against Iraq.

While America has made it clear that the
battle against the "axis of evil" needs to be fought in conjunction
with the war against terrorism, this message does not seem to be
getting to audiences across the Atlantic. Voters in the U.K. are
simply not convinced in sufficient numbers that Saddam Hussein
poses as great a threat, or even a much greater threat, to British
security than does the al-Qaeda network. Evidence of links between
Hussein and bin Laden is starting to emerge,54 and
this evidence needs to be developed and pushed to the forefront by
the intelligence services and information departments of the U.S.
and British governments.

British Muslim
Opinion.
Home Secretary David Blunkett has warned that British
participation in U.S.-led strikes against Iraq might provoke
rioting by Muslim youths in British cities, especially in Northern
English towns such as Bradford, the scene of serious Muslim riots
last summer. There are an estimated 2 million Muslims in Britain
(in contrast to France, with its 6 million Muslims), who are
largely of Pakistani origin. However, the British government is
unlikely to be deterred by the threat of civil unrest by a volatile
minority.55

British
Media.
In a nation saturated with national newspapers, the British print
media will play an important role in shaping public attitudes in
the lead-up to a war in the Gulf. Ironically, it is the right-wing
papers, led by The Daily Telegraph and
The Sun , that are giving Tony Blair
and the Labour government the strongest support for its position on
Iraq. Traditional Labour-supporting publications, such as The Guardian , The
Mirror , and The Independent ,
have expressed fierce opposition to any British involvement in a
U.S.-led campaign. The influential business broadsheet, The Financial Times , has also been
lukewarm in its support.

The
fact that The Sun , a populist tabloid
and Britain's biggest-selling daily with 4 million readers, is
backing a war with Iraq will be comforting for Blair. A strongly
nationalistic publication that has lent its support to Blair in the
last two elections, The Sun can be a useful barometer of British
public opinion. The Times , like The Sun a Rupert Murdoch-owned
publication, also has backed Blair and Bush over Iraq.

The European Union Reaction

The European
Commission.
Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, has expressed
clear reservations about U.S. military action against Iraq and has
indicated that the EU is likely to oppose a U.S.-led attack.
Interviewed by the BBC, Prodi stated that "my position is one of
deep worry about a possible attack on Iraq because of the potential
expansion of the conflict. It is a very delicate area."56 It is likely that the EU will
use opposition to the Iraq issue to strengthen its position as a
voice opposed to the United States on the world stage. Speaking at
the EU summit in Barcelona, Prodi made it clear that Europe's goal
was to create "a superpower on the European continent that stands
equal to the United States."57

EU
External Relations Commissioner Christopher Patten has warned
America against moving into "unilateralist overdrive." Patten
believes that American military success in Afghanistan has

reinforced some dangerous instincts: that
the projection of military power is the only basis of true
security; that the US can rely on no-one but itself; and that the
allies may be useful as an optional extra. I hope these instincts
will not prevail because I believe them to be profoundly
misguided.58

A
former chairman of the Conservative Party under John Major, Patten
also was the last British Governor of Hong Kong. While praised in
Britain and the United States for standing up to China in the final
years of British rule in the colony, he has become increasingly
alienated from his own political party because of his strong
support for European political and economic integration. Patten is
a figure largely mistrusted by the Labour Party and the Left in
Britain, a legacy of his years of service in the Conservative Party
in the 1980s and early 1990s. Tony Blair is therefore not likely to
pay too much attention to Patten's posturing. Patten is, however, a
figure of tremendous weight, influence, and respect among the
political elites of the European Union, and his views are taken
very seriously in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin.

Patten's outspoken condemnation of U.S.
foreign policy illustrates both the resentment felt by the EU
toward American global hegemony and the socialist view dominant
within EU institutions that the roots of international terrorism
lie in global poverty and the "dark side of globalisation." The
solution, according to this worldview, is to increase levels of
Third World aid and actively engage rogue nations such as Iran and
North Korea. In an interview with The Guardian, Patten poured scorn
on recent increases in U.S. defense spending and stressed the
importance of the EU's aid programs, championing the use of "smart
development assistance" over "smart bombs":

President Bush has just announced a $48
billion increase in defence spending. Now if you mark the
significance of Europe's relations with America by how much we're
prepared to spend on defence, forget it! We can't even pay the
entrance fee! Europe provides 55% of development assistance in the
world and two thirds of grant aid. So when it comes to what the
Americans call the "soft end of security"--which I happen to think
is the hard end of security--we have a huge amount to
contribute.... We have seen the "dark side of globalisation." Now
we know where the huge injustices of the global economy can lead.
We know too, how important it is to handle failed states
properly--and to prevent them failing in the first place. We have
realised that we have to tackle "the root causes of terrorism and
violence."59

The
only conciliatory noises to have come out of Brussels recently have
been from the EU's "high representative" for common foreign and
security policy, Javier Solana, who has been critical of the
"megaphone" diplomacy of some of his European colleagues. He called
for America to be treated with more respect by European politicians
and emphasized that "the relationship between the United States and
the EU is crucial and we should not play with that relationship."60 While Solana is by no means a
strong supporter of current U.S. foreign policy, as a former NATO
Secretary General, he has a much better awareness and understanding
of the threat posed to the West's security than do most of his
European counterparts.

Germany.
Tony Blair has found himself increasingly isolated within Europe
over his support for America. At the Barcelona EU summit in March
2002, Blair failed to drum up support for possible U.S. action
against Iraq and encountered strong opposition in some quarters.
Speaking at the summit, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announced that
Germany had abandoned its policy of "unlimited solidarity" with
Washington, which had been implemented following the events of
September 11. Schroeder stated that Germany would refuse to back
U.S.-led action against Iraq without a clear mandate from the
United Nations.61

The
Schroeder administration has been at the forefront of international
criticism of the Bush doctrine. Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer,
whose extreme left Green Party remains fundamentally hostile to the
aims of U.S. foreign policy, has condemned what he sees as
America's treatment of its European partners as "satellites."